Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 31

Update: Moving toward setting up preorders, really and truly

My, look at that, October tomorrow! Wow.

Of course, I do know where September went: it went into the Griffin Mage trilogy. And, yes, into Silver Circle, sure. A teensy bit into “Midwinter.”

So, I don’t normally worry about daily, weekly, or monthly planners. But, lately, I keep having to pause and think: What should I do today? What should I do tomorrow? What do I most need to have completed by the end of the week?

Like almost everyone, probably, I tend to be too optimistic in what I think I can get done in a day or a week. Nevertheless, here’s my best guess:

I think I should be sending Silver Circle Part I to proofreaders on Wednesday; that is, October 2nd. I think I should be sending Part II to the second round of early readers next Monday, October 7th. I hope (notice that this isn’t as clear as “I think”) that I should be sending Part III to the earliest readers by the Monday after that, October 14th.

***

I’m debating with myself about preorder release dates. Remember that I need to drop each book a minimum of a couple weeks early at my Patreon. I think I can just about guarantee Part I will drop at my Patreon in October; I think I can just about guarantee that for Part II as well. Part III is a little iffy. I think by the middle of November? But I wouldn’t bet a lot of money on that.

My goal, such as it is, is to decide about preorder dates no later than October 7th and put all three books up for preorder. The decision will have to do with — staggered preorder dates? In that case, maybe November, November, December. All three at once? In that case, maybe early December.

***

Public Service Message

Recently, someone left my gate open, which this time I realized almost before the dogs were heading out into the wide world. The boys were like, Did you say cookies? Who cares about the gate when all the cookies are in the house! The girls were like, Woo-hoo! The gate’s open! This was briefly terrifying, until Joy — she is BY FAR the most likely to sprint into the woods and get lost — decided that she, too, was interested in the immediate prospect of yummy, yummy cookies and therefore turned around and came back through the gate. Yes, we are working on a good recall. No, I don’t trust her, especially if there is a bunny anywhere in sight.

Did you realize that it is now easy to customize metal (outdoor) signs at Amazon and order whatever you want? Two signs like this should be arriving shortly:

I’m going to post one at the actual gate and one at the point where the sidewalk from the gate hits the driveway. I hope very much that this will end the problem of people leaving the gate open, which has happened three times this year, which I swear to God is taking years off my life. I’ve become highly phobic and literally go through periods where I get up and go outside to check on the gates twenty or thirty times a day, even when no one has been over as far as I know, just so I can re-confirm the gates are indeed shut.

I’m done saying nicely, “Please remember to close the gate.” The next step after these signs will be a padlock with exactly one key and a flat statement that no one at all needs to go through that gate, ever, unless I’m standing right there watching. BUT, I hope the signs will do the job, and I hereby suggest that anybody with dogs check out these neat signs, which are reasonably priced, come in lots of sizes, and are not at all difficult to customize.

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Words and Artistry

Check this out:

Beautiful? Grotesque? Both? Eye-catching for sure. Would you pick this book off the shelf if it were presented face out? I would, but I’m not sure whether I might also wince slightly. I’m not sure whether I’m coming down on the “beautiful” or “grotesque” side here. This is aside from not being very interested in short stories, generally speaking.

The author of this book says this:

I love words. This is why I wrote Tales of the Wythenwood. Now, saying I love words may seem odd, perhaps more usual would be the maxims we often hear from writers. I love writing, I love being creative, I love fantasy, sci-fi, intergalactic cat literature…take your pick. Now, for me, all of these are more than true (bar the cat thing), but the overriding factor that underpins all that drove me to write this book is a lifelong love affair with words. Words aren’t just functional units of language used to communicate meaning, they are alive, like music they have rhythm, tone, tempo—a living pulse. I find that thinking of words in this way has sadly become a rarity in modern literature.

Is that true? I talk about words that way! Or, more often, sentences. Words have rhythm in a sense, I suppose, as long as you mean words like “onomatopoeia” and not words like “crisp.” Single-syllable words have rhythm in sentences, but can a single beat have rhythm by itself? I would say no. Notice that I’m now talking about words in exactly the way Hawkins says has become rare. Has that actually become rare? Among writers? I don’t know. I do know that Sharon Shinn and I once had a nice chat about where we each learned the word “chatoyant” and we wouldn’t have bothered having a conversation about a boring word like “fall,” a word that is interesting only in phrases or sentences.

However, beats me what Hawkins considers “modern literature.”

Tales of the Wythenwood is a collection of dark, allegorical fantasy stories set in a mysterious fairytale forest—The Wythenwood. It has five short stories and a novella, each visiting different themes that mirror the world in which we live with new characters introduced in each yet interconnected by the lore and worldbuilding of the forest. Great Oak, an omnipotent power, hatches plans to crush dissent. Injured Desideria is helped by a mysterious creature—but what is its real intent? The Taker of Faces stalks the night for her next victim. Will this be the one that sates her need and provides all that she craves? Indoli, a benevolent master of manipulation learns the consequences of teaching his ways too well—and soon the fate of the entire wood is at stake.

Well, I don’t know. “Dark allegorical” are not necessarily words that make me want to pick up the collection.

The first story of this collection is called “Gerald the Mangy Fox,” which for me is something of a turnoff. Here’s how this story begins:

There once was a forest and in that forest creatures innumerate dwelt. There were mice, there were owls, badgers, rats, wolves, and that could imaginably live within a forest. Yet no forest would be worthy of a story unless upon occasion the flash of a bushy tail, bright and orange, could be seen among the undergrowth. The Wythenwood is one such forest.

The forest thrived; its sprawling trees and canopy left the forest floor dark and shadowy and full of the shadowy nooks and crannies that foxes love so dearly. So, amongst the tangle of roots at the feet of the age-old trees lay the mouths of one hundred and one subterranean dens — the homes of the foxes.

Not all that keen, personally. Partly this is because when someone begins by talking about the poetry of words, I’m going to be looking hard at the words. In my opinion, Mark Helprin, for example, infuses poetry into his sentences much more effectively than Hawkins.

How about that, Helprin’s A Soldier of the Great War is $2.99 today — down from $17.99. Fine, Amazon, twist my arm. Here’s how this one begins:

On the ninth of August, 1964, Rome lay asleep in afternoon light as the sun swirled in a blinding pinwheel above its roofs, its low hills, and its gilded domes. The city was quiet and all was still except the crowns of a few slightly swaying pines, one lost and tentative cloud, and an old man who rushed through the Villa Borghese, alone. Limping along paths of crushed stone and tapping his cane as he took each step, he raced across intricacies of sunlight and shadow spread before him on the dark garden floor like golden lace.

That’s the one I’m picking up.

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Why is English considered a Germanic language?

Here’s a great Quora answer to this question: Why is English considered a Germanic language and not a romance language?

This answer breaks down not just the overall vocabulary of English, but also the everyday vocabulary of English and the vocabulary used in specific works of literature versus legal and medical articles. This is really neat!

Also, who the heck thought of ticking off the words in a book by Mark Twain and assigning all the words to categories? I wonder if someone assigned this project to a grad student somewhere. I wonder if this was done before or after the invention of Find functions in word processors? Because if you want to calculate the number of German-derived words in a specific book, it sure would be handy to be able to Find “the” and “of” and “his” and so on, not just tick them off one word at a time from front to back of the book.

Regardless, this Quora answer then mentions grammatical structure and so forth. Definitely worth clicking through if you’re at all interested in this topic.

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Poetry Thursday: Short Poems by Swinburne

Last week, I simply forgot to do a poetry post. Sorry! I know some of you like these posts, and so do I, so that was just an accident. This week, I scheduled this post early so I wouldn’t just forget to do it. And when I thought, “So, poems, poems, hmm, what should I do this week?” I thought of Swinburn.

Everyone knows this stanza, right?

Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,
Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,
Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble
The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink,
Here now in his triumph where all things falter,
Stretch’d out on the spoils that his own hand spread,
As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,
Death lies dead.

This is such a fantastic poem, one of my very favorites, though of course rather grim. It’s fantastic because of the language, and especially the rhythm. It’s bleak because, well, Swinburne. It’s also ten stanzas long, because Swinburne was not exactly into haiku. Ten stanzas actually counts as pretty short, for him. This is just such a perfect poem to read out loud.

But surely Swinburn wrote some poems that were actually short? It turns out that he did! Lots of them! Here is one:

***

A roundel is wrought as a ring or a starbright sphere,
With craft of delight and with cunning of sound unsought,
That the heart of the hearer may smile if to pleasure his ear
A roundel is wrought.
Its jewel of music is carven of all or of aught —
Love, laughter, or mourning — remembrance of rapture or fear —
That fancy may fashion to hang in the ear of thought.
As a bird’s quick song runs round, and the hearts in us hear
Pause answer to pause, and again the same strain caught,
So moves the device whence, round as a pearl or tear,
A roundel is wrought.

***

Look at that! Swinburne, being playful as he explains the poetic form he is just-now inventing!

I didn’t actually know that Swinburne invented this form, but apparently so! Eleven lines, three stanzas (quatrain, tercet, quatrain), the opening of the first line becomes a refrain of the fourth and eleventh lines and rhymes with lines two, five, seven, and nine, which means the rhyme pattern is

abab bab abab but the endings of the two quatrains match and also those lines are short compared to the other lines.

Swinburne wrote roundels to his friend Christina Rosetti and I’m sure it won’t surprise you that she began to write poems in this form too, because of course she did, who wouldn’t:

Sleeping at last, the trouble and tumult over,
Sleeping at last, the struggle and horror past,
Cold and white, out of sight of friend and of lover,
Sleeping at last.

No more a tired heart downcast or overcast,
No more pangs that wring or shifting fears that hover,
Sleeping at last in a dreamless sleep locked fast.

Fast asleep. Singing birds in their leafy cover
Cannot wake her, nor shake her the gusty blast.
Under the purple thyme and the purple clover
Sleeping at last.

***

If you’d like a collection of roundels, look here, a free ebook called A Century of Roundels at Amazon. This book offers sixty or so of Swinburne’s roundel poems. It’s also available from Project Gutenberg.

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Griffin Mage #3, Cover and Description

Okay, now that I’m pretty well settled on back cover description for Book #2, naturally it’s time to do Book #3! Actually, I didn’t expect to be here quite yet, but I made a big push and stayed up late in order to finish the final read-through of Law of the Broken Earth and make the ebook and paperback files. I should be able to make the epub file and load that at my Patreon later today or maybe tomorrow, this week for sure.

Here’s the cover for Book #3:

And now I need back cover description, obviously. Here’s the original version —

***

In Feierabiand, in the wide green Delta, far from the burning heat of the griffin’s desert, Mienthe’s peaceful life has been shaken. Tan – clever, cynical, and an experienced spy – has brought a deadly secret out of the neighboring country of Linularinum.

Now, as three countries and two species rush toward destruction, Mienthe fears that even her powerful cousin, Bertaud, may be neither able nor even willing to find a safe path between the secret Linularinum would kill to preserve and the desperate ferocity of the griffins.

But can Mienthe? And, in the end, will Tan help her or do everything in his power to stand in her way?

***

This back cover description is not great. Most obviously, it is not accurate: Mienthe and Tan are never for one second opposed during the events in this book. And would you like to know why this description is so misleading? I’ll tell you: It’s because I wrote this description LONG before the actual story was finished.

It turns out that sometimes this happens in traditional publishing. The publisher sometimes wants the description so far in advance that the author literally has to write the description before she writes the novel. No doubt for an outliner, this is less troublesome. An author who outlines AND sticks to the outline can just do the description whenever. I, however, really can’t do that. Or not usually. I could have for RIHASI, and for MARAG, and come to think of it, I could do this for a lot of the Tuyo-world books. I suppose that’s one reason they’re so fast to write compared to everything else. However, I was seriously off base about where I’d go in the third Griffin Mage book.

Also, though Bertaud does play an important role in the third book, he isn’t a pov character and honestly there’s no need to mention him.

So, important elements: Mienthe, who is hesitant — her arc is from hesitant to trusting herself much more. Tan, who is indeed clever, cynical, and an experienced spy. Kairaithin, the titular griffin mage. Also lots of other important characters, a couple of whom actually do take brief pov roles — Kes, Jos, Bertaud, the white griffin (Tastairiane). The Arobern. Beguchren. I had sort of forgotten that I actually have four pov characters in this novel, which isn’t even all that long — Jos takes a couple of chapters in order to show the reader some important events (and also to show the reader Kes, who has changed tremendously from the first book, of course, and is not entirely comprehensible at this point. Beguchren takes one chapter because that was an important scene and someone had to show it, plus I just liked the scene too much to refer to it rather than show it.

Anyway: Mienthe, Tan, secrets, the breaking of Tehre’s Wall, the law of the world.

***

The peace forged with such difficulty between the griffins and humans is holding … for now.

Although a peace was forced upon the griffins, the root of the conflict was never resolved and now, six years later, a deep current of simmering anger remains. Now the uneasy peace is once again threatened, and no one knows why.

In Feierabiand, in the wide, green Delta, far from the burning heat of the griffin’s desert, Mienthe’s peaceful life is shaken by the arrival of Tan — a clever, cynical spy who has stolen a deadly secret from the neighboring country of Linularinum. Not even Tan himself knows exactly what he has stolen — but Mienthe, with magic unexpectedly waking in her hands and her heart, believes Tan may hold the key to a lasting peace.

Now, as three countries and two species rush toward destruction, Mienthe and Tan must somehow find a safe path between the secret Linularinum would kill to preserve and the ferocity of the griffins … before it’s too late.

***

What do you think?

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Archon Panel: Dialogue

How to Write Realistic Dialogue 5 Oct 2024, Saturday 6:00 – 7:00 Have you ever been completely taken out of a story by unrealistic dialogue? Sometimes it’s a matter of being “too realistic”. It can be harder than you think to create realistic dialogue and also drop the real-life filler words that will bog down your writing.

I don’t think that’s the right way to phrase this, and I bet you all agree. I think the above has too much emphasis on “realistic” and should instead be using words such as “good” and “great” and “believable and also “witty.” All of those qualities are more important than “realistic.”

Also, I don’t think it’s at all difficult to drop filler words from written dialogue. In fact, I think it’s hard to remember to put them in, on the somewhat rare occasions you may want to have a character say “um” or “like” or whatever. Those fillers can be used to great effect in great dialogue, but who in the world would put them in by accident? No one, that’s who, because deciding to type “um” is a lot more of a decision than saying “um” in actual real-world conversation.

Who’s moderating this panel? Oh, good, looks like I’m moderating! That means I get to frame questions for the panel, and one of those questions will certainly be, “Do you think realistic is the appropriate word for what we’re trying to create in fiction?” Another question will be, “Do you find it difficult to avoid overuse of filler words when writing dialogue?” I suppose it would be best to start with, “So, what are filler words anyway?” because maybe whoever wrote the panel description was thinking of something else. Maybe they were thinking of words like “So” at the beginning of a sentence. That’s not really a filler word, in my opinion. It’s a way of introducing a sentence that’s perfectly appropriate if what you want is to indicate, “So, I’m going to start a new topic here” or “So, I understood what you said and I’m going to respond to it” or lots of other functions.

Regardless, the real question is: How do you write great dialogue? Or maybe: What is great dialogue? And possibly, What is stiff dialogue? Because that is the most typical failure we see, isn’t it? Dialogue that is stiff or wooden. Or boring. Those are all terms for the same kind of problem.

Or maybe the most typical failure with dialogue is that it’s unnecessary. Characters are conversing, but the conversation isn’t moving the plot forward, isn’t building character, isn’t really doing anything. That can be hard to avoid. That is, I sometimes find it difficult to end a conversation and move into the next scene. I suppose that’s because a conversation is started, it has to reach some kind of conclusion. Or, I mean, not if something blows up; that’s certainly one way to get out of conversation and get moving into the next scene.

Anyway! Dialogue is best shown by example. I don’t honestly think there’s any way to say anything useful about dialogue without examples. So let’s have some examples!

***

After they [Moon and Stone] ate, Moon stretched out on his stomach, basking in the warm firelight, the cool turf soft against his groundling skin, comfortably full of grasseater and tea. From somewhere distant, he heard a roar, edged like a bell and so far away it almost blended with the wind. He slanted a look at Stone to see if they had to worry.

“Skylings, mountain wind-walkers.” Stone sat by the fire, breaking sticks up into small pieces and absently tossing them into the flames. “They live too far up in the air to notice us.”

Moon rolled onto his side to squint suspiciously up at the sky. The stars were bright, streaked with clouds. “Then what do they eat?”

“Other skylings, tiny ones, no bigger than gnats. They make swarms big enough to mistake for clouds.” As Moon tried to picture that, Stone asked, “Did you ever look for other shifters?”

Stone hadn’t asked about this before, and Moon wanted to avoid the subject. Looking for his own people had led him into more trouble than anything else. “For a while. Then I stopped.” He shrugged, as if it was nothing. “I couldn’t search the whole Three Worlds.”

“And the warrior you were with didn’t tell you which court, or the name of the queen, or anyone in your line?” Stone sounded distinctly irritated. “She didn’t even give you a hint?”

Moon corrected him pointedly, “No, my mother didn’t tell me anything.”

Stone sighed, poking at the fire. Moon got ready for an argument, but instead Stone asked, “How did she and the Arbora die?”

That wasn’t a welcome subject either. It was like an old wound that had never quite stopped bleeding. Moon didn’t want to talk about the details, but he owed Stone some kind of answer. He propped his chin on his arms and looked out into the dark. “Tath killed them.”

Tath were reptile groundlings, predators, and they had surrounded the tree Moon’s family had been sleeping in. He remembered waking, confused and terrified, as his mother tossed him out of the nest. He had realized late that she had picked him because he was the only other one who could fly, the only one who had a chance to escape while she stayed to defend the others.

***

What we have here is dialogue that contains worldbuilding plus characterization. This is a great example of dialogue that includes exposition. Look at this next sample for a complete contrast:

***

Just as she neared, I sat up.
“Good evening,” I said.
“Why – good evening,” she replied.
“When do I check out?” I asked.
“I’ll have to ask Doctor.”
“Do so,” I said.
“Please roll up your sleeve.”
“No, thanks.”
“I have to give you an injection.”
“No, you don’t. I don’t need it.”
“I’m afraid that’s for Doctor to say.”
“Then send him around and let him say it. But in the meantime, I will not permit it.”
“I’m afraid I have my orders.”
“So did Eichmann, and look what happened to him.” And I shook my head slowly.

***

That’s from Zelazny’s Amber series — you probably recognized it. That’s hard-boiled-detective style dialogue. There’s no worldbuilding at all — zero description, zero exposition, straight dialogue. Very minimal tags. Zelazny was running the risk here of the reader losing track of who was saying what — except that Corwin and the nurse are solidly in their roles, so that makes it easier to keep track. Contrast that with this next sample, which shows a very philosophy regarding the use of dialogue tags.

***

“I was promised a long story,” Duvall said, after they had gotten their food and drinks.
“I made no such promise,” Dahl said.
“The promise was implied,” Duvall protested. “And besides, I bought you a drink. I own you. Entertain me, Ensign Dahl.”
“All right, fine,” Dahl said. “I entered the Academy late because for three years I was a seminary student.”
“Okay, that’s moderately interesting,” Duvall said.
“On Forshan,” Dahl said.
“Okay, that’s intensely interesting,” Duvall said.

***

That’s from Scalzy’s Redshirts. I found it absolutely excruciating to listen to in audio form because of the (nearly) invariable use of he said, she said always at the end of each short sentence, always in the same form. Then I got used to it and these tags stopped being so much like fingernails on a blackboard, but I would personally point to this as an example of bad dialogue and I’m sorry because I know Scalzi is popular, but there it is. Compare that to the far more sophisticated and far less obtrusive tags in the sample below:

***

“You’ll never guess what Stella told me last night,” Sawyer said, strolling into the kitchen just as Julia was finishing the apple stack cake she was going to take to Vance Shelby’s granddaughter.

Julia closed her eyes for a moment. Stella must have called him the moment Julia left her last night.

Sawyer stopped next to her at the stainless steel table and stood close. He was like crisp, fresh air. He was self-possessed and proud, but everyone forgave him because charm sparkled around him like sunlight. [ . . . ]

“You’re not supposed to be back here,” she said as she put the last layer of cake on top of the dried-apple-and-spice filling.

“Report me to the owner.” He pushed some of her hair behind her left ear, his fingers lingering on the thin pink streak she still dyed in her hair there.

“Don’t you want to know what Stella told me last night?”

She jerked her head away from his hand as she put the last of the apple and spice filling on top of the cake, leaving the sides bare. “Stella was drunk last night.”

“She said you told her that you bake cakes because of me.”

Julia had known it was coming, but she stilled anyway, the icing spatula stopping mid-stroke. She quickly resumed spreading the filling, hoping he hadn’t noticed. “She thinks you have low self-esteem. She’s trying to build up your ego.”

He lifted one eyebrow in that insolent way of his. “I’ve been accused of many things, but low self-esteem is not one of them.”

“It must be hard to be so beautiful.”

“It’s hell. Did you really say that to her?”

She clanged the spatula into the empty bowl the filling had been in, then took both to the sink. “I don’t remember. I was drunk, too.”

“You never get drunk,” he said.

“You don’t know me well enough to make blanket statements like ‘You never get drunk.’” It felt good to say that. Eighteen years she’d been away. Look how much I’ve improved, she wanted to say.

***

Far, far better. In case you don’t recognize that, it’s Sarah Addison Allen. I really love her books — most of them. The above snippet is from one of my favorites, The Girl Who Chased the Moon.

Here’s a post by Joe Berkowitz: Legendary Screenwriting Guru Robert McKee On Creating Incredible Dialogue.

McKee says: “The hallmark of beautiful dialogue is transparency, you see characters saying whatever they say, and you go right through those words to what they’re thinking and feeling, even down to the subconscious level … Bad dialogue is opaque, bad dialogue stops the eye of the audience at the screen, stage, or page, and explains outwardly, blatantly, and falsely what the character’s thinking or feeling.”

There’s probably more to it than that, but transparency is one virtue of a lot of good dialogue, yes. The above is talking about two things, really — transparency and veracity — that’s the part about revealing to the reader what the characters are thinking and feeling. Good dialogue can either do that directly (reliable narrator) or kind of through a back door (unreliable narrator), but both generally show the reader true things about the characters and the story.

Besides transparency and veracity, what else? Well, other virtues common to great dialogue are wit and liveliness. I’m thinking of Lindsay Buroker here.

***

“Waiting for the right people isn’t going to get us where we want; we need to go out and find…” She groped for the right word. A mission? A project? A job?

“Trouble?” Sicarius suggested.

“An endeavor that will help the city and prove to the emperor that we’re undeserving of the bounties on our heads and we’re invaluable resources to his regime.”

“Trouble,” Sicarius said.

***

Buroker can write clunky sentences in non-dialogue prose, but her dialogue is great. Who else does really good, witty banter? Ilona Andrews, especially in later books. Oh, Laura Florand. I was sorry when Laura Florand stopped writing. Hopefully she just turned her attention to other things, because her contemporary romances were the ones that got me reading the genre in the first place.

What are some common problems with dialogue?

1) Too Much Realism

Despite the emphasis on “realism” in the panel’s description, you definitely do not want dialogue that sounds to real. Definitely not.

2) Not Enough Individuality

Every character ought to sound different from every other character, especially if they’re from very different backgrounds, most especially if they’re from very different cultural backgrounds.

3) Clumsy info-dumping

You absolutely can write good, believable “As you know, Bob,” dialogue. It’s not even hard. You do it like this:

“Forgive me; of course you know all this. I fear I’m a little fretful.”

“Now, I think we all agree thus and so and this and that, right? So then the question is …”

In the real world, there are nigh unto infinite situations in which somebody will explain or comment on something that everyone in the room already knows. I don’t mean those times when the office pedant insists on explaining in excruciating detail something everyone already knows. I mean people do this casually all the time, and you can make it sound fine in a novel as well. Not that you should do it for no reason, but if you have a reason to do it, you can do it so smoothly not a single reader will complain — and in a way that builds character as well as offering information to the reader. Do it right and most readers won’t even notice. It’s only when you do it badly that it turns into an “as you know, Bob” moment.

So, don’t do it badly.

4) Trying too hard, getting too silly.

“John, are you listening?” Mary fidgeted, her heart aching at the way he was ignoring her.

“What? Oh, sure. Why are you wondering if I love you? Of course I do—how could you think such a thing?” John went back to reading his book, his brows furrowed in concentration. Mary waited for more, but he said nothing else. Then his face brightened. “Hey, what’s for dessert?”

“Chocolate cake—your favorite.” She played with her apron strings, then, with clenched teeth, she threw the apron to the ground. “I’ll go get you a piece.”

I found this example here, where it is presented as an example of good dialogue. I don’t think so at all. I think this is what people come up with when they deliberately set out to stuff the subtext into the scene and they’re trying too hard and it gets silly. To me, this looks A LOT like ChatGPT dialogue. Here, for comparison, is a sample of ChatGPT dialogue:

Alex gently brushes a strand of hair behind Jamie’s ear, their eyes locking. “You know, even on the toughest days, just seeing you makes everything feel right.”

Jamie smiles, their heart racing, as they lean closer. “I feel the same. It’s like you’re my safe place in a world full of chaos.”

Alex takes Jamie’s hands, fingers intertwining, and whispers, “I never want to leave that safe place, not now, not ever.”

Trying too hard, getting silly. This is really common in ChatGPT-generated dialogue, and since that dialogue has to come from somewhere, I guess it’s similar (in at least some ways) to human-generated dialogue — bad dialogue.

All right! So! Here’s the tl;dr version:

Dialogue fails when it’s too silly, when it’s too stiff or boring, when it’s too realistic, when tags become obtrusive for any reason, when it fails to build character or move the story forward and also fails to be witty enough to justify just on that basis.

Dialogue succeeds when it’s transparent or witty or both, when tags are smooth or absent, when it builds character or moves the story forward.

That’s what I think. I’m now going to design panel questions around some of the ideas here. Anybody else got a great example for authors who do especially good dialogue? Because the way to build skill at writing dialogue, or at least one way, is surely to read a lot of great dialogue.

AND

Here, in case you’d like to click through and take a look, is a contest for short stories written entirely with dialogue. Many past winners are presented.

Here’s a snippet from one entry:

Haikuzilla by Caleb Echterling

“Sugarbear! Get in here with the latest Insta-tracking poll numbers. We need a handle on how my crisis response is playing.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Governor. The bad news is that your approval number is down to fourteen percent. The good news is that undecideds climbed two points to seven percent.”

“Son of a bitch. So my disapproval rating is…let’s see…carry the six…hang on…aw, crap, who does math in their head anymore. What about the real-time focus group?”

“They rate your crisis management somewhere between incompetent and treasonous.”

***

Lively, witty, fun — I’ll have to check out more of the past winners when I get a moment.

“This calls for drastic measures. Get me General Oblong on the phone.”

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Griffin Mage #2: Back Cover Copy

Okay, here’s my really serious effort to get Lady Tehre into the back cover description. What do you think?

***

The cold mages of Casmantium began a war against the griffins. They lost.

As the griffins’ fiery winds bury his city beneath the burning sands of the desert, Gereint Enseichen, a skilled maker bound under the Casmantian geas of servitude, seizes his chance to escape. This isn’t his war — and he sees no reason it should be. Yet when Gereint finds himself caught between the fury of the griffins and the desperate designs of the last Casmantian mage, he’ll have no choice but to set his newfound freedom at hazard or see his country destroyed.

Tehre Amnachudran, brilliant mathematician and engineer, is far more interested in constructing bridges than in battle. But when she encounters Gereint, she finds herself pulled into a war she never expected to fight. Her skills seem ill-suited to war, yet as the blazing storm breaks across Casmantium, she, too, must set every skill she owns between her country and deadly peril.

Time is short, for Casmantium is already turning to desert below the fiery storm …

***

Is there a good synonym for “fiery” that would work either in the first sentence or the last?

I’ve already used “burning” and “blazing.” To me, “incandescent” doesn’t quite work. Scorching, ablaze with, hmm.

But, overall, this seems pretty decent to me. Comments welcome!

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Land of the Burning Sands: Cover and back cover copy

Okay, so here’s the basically final draft of the cover for the Griffin Mage #2 —

You can see the artist’s watermarks are still there, but basically this is the cover. I’m considering how to re-do the back cover copy, and this is, as always, something of a challenge. I’m also considering fonts. I have this set at Garamond 11 right now, which is small, but I hope not too small? It drops the page count to 410, where otherwise it would be like 480 or something, which seems awfully long. The printing cost does go up per page. Honestly, since I now need reading glasses for practically any normal-sized font in any printed book, from Garamond 10 to TNR 12, it seems kind of okay. Anybody got strong opinions about that?

ANYWAY, here is the current back cover copy:

In the aftermath of a brutal war, Gereint of Casmantium watches his city crumble. He knows little of how his king sought, unwisely, to use griffins as pawns in a human conflict. Yet Gereint does know that his kingdom’s defeat offers him a chance to escape from servitude.

But now that the griffins find themselves in a position of strength, they are not inclined to forgive, and the entire kingdom finds itself in deadly peril. Willing or not, Gereint will find himself caught up in a desperate struggle between the griffins and the last remaining Casmantian mage. Time is short, for the fiery wind of the griffins is already burying Casmantium beneath burning sands …

I think I can do better than this. Not that this will be easy! But I think I should at least try to do better.

Let me see. All right, what do you think of this:

***

The cold mages of Casmantium began a war against the griffins, intending to reclaim the burning desert for their own country. They lost.

Gereint Enseichen, a skilled maker bound under the Casmantian geas of servitude, knows nothing of broader events. As the griffins’ desert sands blow through the crumbling streets of his city, he seizes the chance to escape. This isn’t his battle — or he sees no reason it should be.

But the griffins, having found an unanswerable weapon, will not stop, and before the storm of their fury, all Casmantium finds itself in deadly peril. When Gereint finds himself caught between the fury of the griffins and the desperate designs of the last Casmantian mage, he’ll have no choice but to set his newfound freedom at hazard, or watch his country destroyed.

Time is short, for the griffins’ fiery wind is already burying Casmantium beneath burning sands …

***

There are thinks I like about this attempt, but I don’t like everything about it.

Comments? Suggestions?

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Update: Progress on many fronts

You know, my life would be simpler if I were trying to make progress on ONE front. Or maybe two. But here I am, lots going on, though I’m starting to see light at the end of some of the tunnels.

I think I did in fact make progress on ALL the fronts last week. Let me count them.

1) I finished reading through the 2nd Griffin Mage book, corrected a handful of formatting errors, corrected one egregious typo (griffin’s when it should have been griffins), and made the paperback file. So I loaded Book Two as a draft at KDP, which is fantastic. I should be setting it up for preorder and an epub file to drop over at my Patreon this week, or as soon as I have the final version of the ebook cover. The preorder will be the same as for Book 1, btw — November 4th. The new editions of all three books will go live at the same time.

2) I started reading through the 3rd Griffin Mage book for final formatting.

3) I wrote the next bit of “Midwinter,” which can go into my next newsletter, which I guess I’ll send out this week, probably. It’s close to 5000 words, but still does not bring us all the way to the really fun part. But then, I always knew it would take a while to get to the really fun part.

4) I continued with the ongoing process of proofing and correcting all the earlier Black Dog books. This is just slow because I’m doing so many other things at the same time.

AND

4) I have been more or less taking a break from Silver Circle because I’m waiting to hear back about Part II from the very earliest readers. I don’t want to do much with Part III until I’ve heard back about Part II, for reasons that are probably obvious. However, after finishing the next bit of “Midwinter,” I went ahead and started primary revision of SC: Part III because I do already know about some things that need to be revised, so onward with that.

So, lots going on, but at least it’s all going.

Also, I’m still appreciating not having to worry about jury duty, at least not for a while. If that second excuse request hadn’t gone through I would be in St Louis right this minute, finding the parking garage near the courthouse and preparing to lay out, as politely as possible, exhibit A, B, and C for why it’s not reasonable to force me to drive to St Louis to be on a jury.

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The Seven Habits of Ineffective Writers

I have to say, as titles for blog posts go, this one REALLY caught my eye: The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Writers: Powerful Lessons in Personal Sabotage.

I certainly clicked through. I bet most people are clicking through. This is from Jane Friedman’s blog, by the way.

I would personally define a “highly ineffective writer” as “someone who says they’re a writer but they never complete anything.” I don’t know if that’s in the ballpark for this blog post. Let’s take a look!

1) Trash talk your own book.

2) Assume it will all end in tears no matter what.

3) Put time and attention into everything but writing.

4) Try to please everyone …

All right, this list is kind of loosely alternating between things that stop someone from writing in the first place and things that make it hard to move forward after a draft is, perhaps, finished. That #1, trash talk your own book, is about someone who joins a critique group, but prefaces every offering with, “I’m sure this is just garbage and not worth your time.” Or that would be one form of this self-sabotage strategy.

This kind of negativity goes with #2. Those are almost the same. My book is garbage and there’s no way I’ll ever find an agent. My future as an author is doomed doomed doomed. It also kind of goes with #4, because that’s a kind of negativity too. My own judgment is crap, so if you want me to remove all the adverbs and adjectives, I’ll do that. How many other points here have to do with negative attitudes toward the book and the self?

Looks like one more:

5) Hear exaggerated negative reactions; disbelieve positive reactions.

Said: “Thank you for your powerful submission. Unfortunately, your novel is not a good fit for our press.”
Understood: “We hated your novel and we hate you, too.”

Then two of the problems have to do with distractibility. Only one is really a writing-level problem — a problem with inability to focus on either drafting OR editing, basically, and therefore an inability to make progress.

It looks to me like these “seven habits” therefore fall into three basic categories:

A) Over-negativity

B) The use of distractions or alternate hobbies to avoid writing. Or you could just say, Not really wanting to write.

C) Inability to focus on one thing at a time.

I think there’s at least one more. Or two. Or possibly three.

D) Over-positivity, so the author won’t change a word of his deathless prose and never writes anything publishable.

E) Inability to commit to finishing, so the author stalls out and never completes anything.

F) Inability to resist rabbit holes. I guess that’s really a subset of (B), though — it’s using research as a way to avoid writing; or at least it’s allowing research to derail or prevent writing.

Regardless, great title for a blog post, definitely eye-catching.

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